NEW YORK — When
The Fault in Our Stars landed on bookshelves more than two years ago, John Green’s
enthusiasm for a screen version of his story featuring teens with cancer was nonexistent.

“I had had some Hollywood experiences before that weren’t great, and I felt like Hollywood would
struggle to make a movie where the female romantic lead has nasal cannula tubes in her nose for the
entire movie,” said the author, a graduate of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Now comes
The Fault in Our Stars, the movie.

The film marks the first Hollywood interpretation of a Green best-seller, with the author having
been won over by the script’s dedication to his adolescent characters.

Already a rock star among young readers — mostly the teen-girl variety — Green is a guy who
looks straight out of central casting as Unassuming Writer.

Nowadays, though, he has been walking red carpets, clowning on morning television and bantering
with new buddy Nat Wolff and the film’s other young stars, Shailene Woodley and newcomer Ansel
Elgort.

The 36-year-old Green — who was raised in Orlando, Fla. — is the one (not the hunky Wolff) who
drew he loudest screams recently from several hundred girls at the publishing industry’s annual
BookExpo America.

Green, a father of two, is ever-respectful of his “nerdfighters,” the community of fans
worldwide who have led him to Hollywood’s door and greet one another with his tagline: “Don’t
Forget to Be Awesome!”

The author was vigilant as a presence on the movie set, sobbing when the filmmakers got it right
and cheering on Woodley, Elgort and Wolff, who is slated to star in the next stop on Green’s
big-screen journey for his
Paper Towns.

Can Green hold on to his mojo? His has the kind of authenticity among young people that led a
headline writer at
The New Yorker to dub him the “Teen Whisperer” — although Green doesn’t love the term.

“I don’t whisper to teens very often. I think whispering to teens would be weird and creepy,” he
joked. “I love talking to teenagers. I love making stuff for teenagers and making stuff with
them."

Green was an early YouTube user. He has a rapid-fire delivery in an ongoing series of videos he
exchanges with his brother, Hank, who lives in Montana. Their Vlogbrothers channel has attracted
millions and showcases Green’s goofy side as he weighs in on everything from Hitler’s sex life to
how to stamp out bullying.

The brothers also put up “Crash Course” videos accompanied by cartoonish graphics to help older
kids cram for school on the sciences and humanities. The videos are used by thousands of
teachers.

Until now, though, Green’s off-the-page life has been exclusively small-screen. Does the writer
part of his brain need to make peace with his developing big-screen brain?

“I hope that I’m not developing a Hollywood brain, to be honest with you,” he said. “I love
books. I love writing books. I love movies, too, but I am a book writer. If I’m lucky enough to be
able to work with people who are great at making movies, then I feel very fortunate, but I have no
desire to become a movie person.”

Green won the 2006 Printz Award for his debut young-adult novel,
Looking for Alaska, and his fans have kept all four of his books high on best-seller
lists. This year, Green made
Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.

He was initially inspired to write
The Fault in Our Stars through his work as a student chaplain at a children’s hospital and
later through his friendship with Esther Earl, a Quincy, Mass., teen he met at a
Harry Potter event. She died of thyroid cancer in 2010 at age 16.

“Esther had a wonderful gift for imagining others and for imagining them very complexly,” Green
said. “That was important to me in thinking about this story, but it was also important to me to
come to the belief that a short life can still be a meaningful life, that a short life can still be
a good and full life.”